“The problem is, there’s a certain type of pedantry that has followed the internet through its various forms, especially in more technical channels, and it often creates a negative experience because it seems to be driven by ideology or disdain for people who don’t think the same way.” https://tedium.co/2023/11/21/mastodon-reply-guy-problem/
Curious to hear if others on here are experiencing what’s described in this piece. I enjoy most of the replies I get on here (though I never have time to respond to most of them, I like reading them)
I do think Mastodon could use more safety/audience limiting tools though, like what Ernie describes. Esp for larger-ish accounts on here who get a lot of replies, it would be nice to limit conversations on some posts. I would also love a real DM inbox on Mastodon! but that might be a pipe dream 😅
@taylorlorenz one really important thing to keep in mind is that different people simply like different things and want different experiences from social media.
It's hard to say that Mastodon has a reply guy problem when there are users who actually want that experience, so for them it's not a problem at all. It's the expected functionality, it's a feature not a bug.
With that in mind I think the Mastodon response is backwards.
Mastodon seems to be following this long approach that fails to empower each user to craft their own experience as they see fit, in terms of what they want out of the platform.
To describe this as a problem, even though many users may want it, is another case of one size fits all thinking that puts the power to shape experience in somebody else's hands.
I just really think we should call #Mastodon out on this and push them to change direction.
It's the same as resistance to #QT and other decisions where developers feel it's their place to tell everybody how they are to use the platform.
